The eighth Commonwealth Games held in Kingston, Jamaica from August 3-14 1966 saw Ghana’s contingent of nine athletes and nine boxers winning nine medals- five gold, two silver and two bronze.

The boxing squad was fantastic. Seven out of the nine boxers had medals: three gold, two silver and two bronze.
The athletics team comprised six men and two women. The men won two gold medals and established new Games records in each case.

Stan Allotey won the 220 yds gold in a record time of 20.6 secs to beat the old time 20.9 secs. He had earlier equaled the old record in the heats. Indeed, the record was broken in the semi-finals. His gold winning time was 20.7 secs. Allotey then teamed up with E.C.O.Addy, B.K.Mends and J.A.Addy to win the 110x4 yds relay in 39.8 secs to shatter the old time of 40.6 secs then jointly held by Ghana and England.

Boxing
Flyweight Sulley Shittu, welterweight Eddie Blay and middleweight Joe Darkey were the gold medalists. Light welterweight Aaron Poopola and heavyweight Adonis Ray took silver medals while light middleweight R.A.Okine and welterweight Amos Ajao won bronze.

Those who fell by the wayside were bantamweight Steve Akushie who lost to a Kenyan after he had brilliantly outpointed Scottish Robert Mallen, 1962 Commonwealth Games flyweight gold medalist and lightweight Jack Sennas who was outclassed by Anthony Andah of Nigeria. The referee stopped the fight in the third round because of an eye cut.

Flyweight Sulley Shittu beat Ken Campbell of Jamaica in the final to win gold. Earlier, Sulley had stopped John Rakowski of Australia in the second round of their semi-final encounter. He floored the Australian twice before knocking him out in the second round. Welterweight Eddie Blay outpointed Bobby Arthur of England to win gold. Earlier he had beaten Jamaican Bersford Small and Andrew Pearce of Scotland.

Middleweight Joe Darkey won the gold knocking out Arthur Trout of Jamaica in the second round. Joe Darkey had drawn a bye into the medal zone without throwing a punch as there were only five entrants in his division. He beat Mathias Ouma of Uganda in the semi-finals.

Light-welterweight Aaron Poopola got silver when he lost in the final to Jim McCourt of Northern Ireland. He had earlier beaten Canadian Richard Finaldy after surviving a knockdown in the second round. There had been a clash of heads and the Canadian bled profusely from the left cheek. In the semi-finals, Poopola beat Raymond Maguire of Australia to reach the final.

Heavyweight Adonis Ray also got silver when he lost to Bill Kini of New Zealand in the final. On his way to the final Ray stopped Stephen Matiani of Kenya in round two and once again stopped Uganda’s Ben Ocan in the first round.

Bronze medallist light middleweight Robert Okine got his medal when he lost the semi-final to Thomas Imrie of Scotland. Okine had earlier stopped Auberyy December of Guyana in the first round of their quarter final pairing. The referee stopped the fight because of persistent holding by Aubrey who could not stand Okine’s aggression.

Featherweight Amos Ajao won the second bronze when he lost the semi finals to Kenya’s Philip Waruinge. Amos had earlier knocked out Llewellyn Sutherland of British Honduras in the first round. The referee stopped the one sided encounter.

More to follow on the history of the Commonwealth games.